Goings On: Sjöström, Markopoulos, and More

New York.He Who Gets Slapped (1924) screens this evening at Film Forum as part of the series Victor Sjöström: The Screen’s First Master. Lon Chaney “is brilliant as a man who has chosen madness over grief,” writes Jon Dieringer, “but Sjöström’s surrealistic asides and clever cutting during HE’s almost hallucinatory act further point toward a perverse possibility of pleasure in reliving past betrayals—and, perhaps, the grim satisfaction of holding up a mirror to his audience’s own vileness.”

Also at Screen Slate: “If you have any doubt that Ed Wood had a vision outside of the cumulative happenstance of the films he directed, then check out 1956’s The Violent Years (directed by William Morgan) at Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn,” writes Chris Shields. “Although Wood only supplied the screenplay for this sleazy exploitation film in ‘social problem’ movie’s clothing, his psychic stamp is so potent that it easily sheds a demented light on the proceedings.” Wednesday night.

On Saturday, Robert Beavers will be at the Metrograph to present a 16 mm print of Gregory Markopoulos’s Galaxie (1966), which, as the theater notes, “collects disarming filmed portraits of thirty men and women of the New York art world in the mid-’60s, including W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag, Allen Ginsberg, Shirley Clarke, and Jasper Johns, and pillars of the filmmaking community like Jonas Mekas and the Kuchar brothers, images edited and overlaid in-camera by Markopoulos and his trusty Bolex.” The Metrograph has posted a lecture that Markopoulos delivered in 1966 in which, focusing on his session with Parker Tyler, he discusses his approach to shooting these portraits before turning with evident amusement to the initial reception of Galaxie.Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos is now out in paperback.

On Wednesday at Light Industry, Martin Grennberger, founding editor of the Stockholm-based film publication Walden, will present a program of Swedish avant-garde films that aims “to show some of the variables at work in a loosely connected or rather heteroclite sample of filmmakers, methods, and formal approaches.”

Chicago. Doc Films will present a 35 mm print of Haile Gerima’s Sankofa (1993) tonight, inspiring Patrick Friel to put together a collection of clips from reviews by Jonathan Rosenbaum and Dave Kehr of five “must-see African films” from the Chicago Reader archives.

Austin. From Friday through Monday, and then on March 21, the Film Society will present SXSW Film @ 25, a selection of award-winners from relatively recent editions of the festival whose 2018 edition opens on March 9. For the Chronicle,Acacia Coronado has put together a guide to the AFS Cinema series.

Philadelphia.Broadcasting: Variety Show Special, a screening at Lightbox Film Center on Wednesday, celebrates the work of pioneer Ernie Kovacs. And Friday sees a screening of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) with a new musical score by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp).

London. “1971 was a pivotal year for Yvonne Rainer, the influential American dancer and choreographer,” writes Stevie Mackenzie-Smith. “‘I could sense everyone’s curiosity about what Yvonne would do next,’ Siobhan Davies, the renowned British choreographer who was studying in New York in 1976, tells AnOther. ‘She has always kept us lively because she keeps intellectually questioning.’ In fact the seven feature films Rainer produced between 1972 and 1992 defined her as one of the most important filmmakers of the period, and of feminist cinema.” Yvonne Rainer: The Choreography of Film is a series of Tuesday screenings at Siobhan Davies Studios starting tomorrow and running through April 10.

Paris. The Cinémathèque française’s Vittorio Storaro retrospective opens on Wednesday and runs through March 5.

Berlin. From Thursday through March 28, the Arsenal will present Splendid Isolation: Hong Kong Cinema 1949–1997, a selection of films “from archives all over the world in their original 35 mm format.” The program “includes classics as well as largely forgotten gems. We are particularly pleased to welcome Hong Kong star director Ann Hui.”

Ghent. Luc Dardenne will be at KASKcinema tomorrow evening to introduce his and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Le fils (2002) and then take part in “an extensive conversation” following the screening presented by Sabzian.

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